Last May, Fabuwood, a kitchen cabinet maker in Newark, instituted a new company policy: No phones allowed during meetings.
To enforce this, the company installed “device racks” outside each of its six glass-walled conference rooms. On a recent Wednesday morning, cartoon meetings were taking place in three of the conference rooms, and the shelves outside were filled with ’90s-style smartphones, tablets and cell phones. The 1,200-person company is paying the cost of a flip phone for employees who ditch their smartphones, and 80 people have acted on the offer.
Surprisingly, employees say they like it. Rena Stoff, a project manager, said that while she hated the idea of being without her smartphone at first, she found that it had made meetings – which she once found boring and unnecessary – engaging and productive.
“Having the phone away from me has almost made my brain more open to information,” she said.
Fabuwood founder and CEO Joel Epstein was motivated by his personal belief that smartphones are “destroying our personal and professional lives.”
He started using a flip phone seven years ago after developing carpal tunnel symptoms in his hands from near-constant use of his BlackBerry. He said he slept better, felt more productive at work and had more meaningful communication. Mr. Epstein, a Hasidic Jew, said his choice of device was not unusual in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, which encourages the use of “kosher phones” with limited Internet access.
Last year, Mr. Epstein asked Fabuwood managers about how often their workers were on their phones. they estimated an average of two hours per day. He asked a warehouse security officer, whose job usually involves monitoring for unsafe conditions, to secretly document every time he saw an employee using a phone in the office. Mr. Epstein said many of the company’s worst performers were on the list.
Mr. Epstein decided to fight back against devices competing for his employees’ time and attention with an “InFocus” initiative, asking employees to keep personal devices out of sight while at work. No one is penalized for breaking the rule, but managers will send email reminders when they notice any backsliding.
There was some grumbling when the initiative was proposed, with some predicting that people would quit. But that didn’t happen, Mr. Epstein said. Conversely, low performers improved. “Within six months, productivity increased by 20 percent,” he said, citing internal company metrics.
What surprised him most, he said, was the steady stream of messages from employees saying the program was life-changing.
I heard about Fabuwood’s initiative after I published an article about fighting my iPhone addiction by switching to a cell phone for a month. Abraham Brull, director of software development at Fabuwood, emailed me to say that he had struggled with smartphone addiction in the past and that it helped him to join a company that encouraged healthier technology use.
His was among the hundreds of emails I received. Many were flip phone enthusiasts who disagreed with my suggestion that using a “dumb phone” indefinitely was not an option. Long-time flip phone users of all ages and professions said their lives were better smartphone-free and that their marriages, relationships with children and mental health flourished as a result.
Alba Suto, 29, from Spain, said the lack of a smartphone made her relationship with her husband, who also switched to an old Nokia, “more mysterious and exciting”.
“Not always having access to each other via messaging apps has improved the quality of our time together,” she wrote in an email. “We have more to talk about.”
“I love it,” wrote Christopher Casino, 29, of Brooklyn, who switched in October to a Cat cell phone that gives him access to Uber, Maps and Spotify, but not social media or news apps. “I do my hobbies more consistently. I read on the subway. I talk more with my husband. I don’t feel the overwhelming pressure of knowing everything right away and saying the perfect thing online.”
‘Flip Phone February’ Tips
Sarah Thibault, 43, an artist in Los Angeles, said she planned to participate in “Flip Phone February,” an idea I suggested Dry January follow. She herself was inspired to give up her smartphone a viral video from a crowd of phones ringing in the new year in Paris.
Created a February Flip Phone community on Reddit to share messages and tips with other participants. I entered and posted a link to a contest recently announced by Siggi’s Yogurt offering $10,000, cell phones, smartphone lockboxes, and of course, free yogurt to 10 people who commit to a monthly digital detox. The company spokeswoman told me that 322,935 people had entered the contest.
Long-time flip phone users advised newbies to “look things up” before leaving home, carry a pen and notepad, and warn friends, colleagues and family about the decision not to use smartphones.
My advice is to consult Dumbphone Finder to see the options on the market. Sunbeam and Kyocera were popular recommendations from readers. But be sure to check with your carrier to find out what “feature phones” — industry parlance for non-smartphones — your network supports.
You may also need to acquire other technology to fill in the gaps. I turned to a digital alarm clock I got in high school in the 90s. (It still works!) Kelin Carolyn Zhang, a product designer who does an annual smartphone detox, wrote that she was using an old digital video camera this year so she could TikTok her trip with the flip phone.
The disadvantages
Switchers be warned: There have been quite a few complaints in my inbox about our increasingly smartphone-centric world.
“The issue that bothers me the most, and one that I wish journalists and regulators would focus on, is the ever-increasing need to have a smartphone to navigate everyday life,” wrote a 47-year-old father. no cell phone at all. “Ten years ago, not having a phone meant some minor social challenges. nowadays, it can be difficult to get through ordinary life.’
He has been dismayed by the now common use of QR codes to attend sporting events and display restaurant menus. He and many others said parking lot pay machines often direct people to pay via smartphone.
“I just got a parking ticket this week because I couldn’t go online and pay through the QR code or their app,” wrote a 31-year-old Missouri mother with a flipped phone. But he said it was worth it.
“Even in these moments I would not go back to the smartphone. I am done being enslaved by a technology that has robbed me and my children of my attention,” he wrote. “Your child-rearing years are few. Your children NEED YOU. Do you want to be a good mom? Do you want to raise healthy children? The best thing you can do is throw your smartphone down the toilet, if only for a little while.”
(But don’t flush your smartphone down the toilet. You might need to connect it to Wi-Fi at some point to get a two-factor authentication code.)
Some readers, such as a corporate executive and mother of three, said they “could never top it.”
“The invention of the smartphone allowed the integration of work and life in ways I could not have imagined!” she wrote
She said her hacks to make it less addictive included turning off notifications and deleting social media apps. She and others thanked me for pointing out a study that found that switching a smartphone from color to grayscale mode helped people significantly reduce their screen time. “With the edge of gray,” he wrote, “turning it on today!”
For those wondering, I’ve been using my cell phone as my primary phone for two months now. But I got a second line for my smartphone to use when internet access is necessary. I’m not sure, for example, that I could find Fabuwood’s headquarters — on unfamiliar streets in industrial Newark — without it.
